While many were fixated on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent letter to the American people, another letter from another Russian leader — this one directly addressed to the U.S. president — was missed.

On September 10, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill issued a letter addressed to “His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama, President, United States.” Whether one wishes to interpret the letter as a product of politics or sincerity, it accurately highlights the plight of Syria’s Christians, especially in the context of a larger civilizational struggle.

I repost major portions of the letter below, interspersed with my observations for added context:

Your Excellency, Dear Mr. President,

The tragic events in Syria have raised anxiety and caused pain in the Russian Orthodox Church. We receive information about the situation there not from the news reports but from living evidence coming to us from religious figures, ordinary believers and our compatriots living in that country.

This is an important point: the “news reports” evaluated by the Russian church are from “living evidence coming to us from religious figures, ordinary believers and our compatriots living in that country.” The fact is, outside of America’s biased “mainstream media,” the evidence concerning what is going on in Syria — namely, that Islamic militants are committing human rights atrocities, including possibly the chemical attacks in question — is overwhelming. Countless eyewitness testimonies, videos, pictures — all those things that rarely make it to the U.S. MSM — make this abundantly clear.

Ask the average Syrian about the current turmoil engulfing their land — and I have, as have numerous Russian Orthodox representatives affiliated with Syria’s ancient Christian community, as noted by the patriarch — and few have any illusions as to its nature: an authoritarian, but secular, Assad vs. radical Islamists and jihadis.

Naturally most Syrians choose Assad.

Only in America, and to a lesser extent Europe, is the myth of “freedom fighters” trying to “liberate” Syria still being peddled.

Patriarch Kirill:

Syria today has become an arena of the armed conflict. Engaged in it are foreign mercenaries and militants linked with international terrorist centres. The war has become an everyday golgotha for millions of civilians.

To be sure, one of the most obvious indicators that this is no “civil war” in the name of “liberty” is the fact that the majority, up to 95%, of those fighting Assad are not even Syrian, but rather al-Qaeda linked jihadis — from Chechnya to the Philippines — trying to form an Islamic emirate in Syria as they did in the 1980s-90s in Afghanistan. Back then, foreign jihadis like Saudi Osama bin Laden and Egyptian Ayman Zawahiri — again, also supported by the U.S. — traveled to Afghanistan, “liberated” it from the U.S.S.R, and then gave us 9/11 as “thanks” in return a decade later.

Here, for example, is a video of foreign militants in a conquered Syrian town singing praises in honor of Osama bin Laden: “They called me a terrorist and I said ‘that will be my honor,’ this is a divine call. … We defeated America … the Trade [Center] became a bunch of rubble. … Greetings from the Taliban and its leader mullah Omar. … Victory is ours, winning is ours, and Allah with all his strength is with us, the infidel masses have come together to defeat us but they will not defeat us.”

I have this question for those who see Putin in a positive light: Is Assad in charge of Syria, the best case scenario for Christians in Syria?

I've been re-reading the expanded 3rd edition of "A history of Israel" by Andrew Sachur, and the point was made that King Feisal of Syria, and his brother King Abdullah of Jordan, they got along well with the government of Israel.

The Syrian Church is the oldest church in Christendom and was at the center of 1,200 years of Christianity that spanned Africa, Asia and the Middle East with communities extending as far as China.

While the Church in Europe expanded along the framework of the Roman Empire, the Syrian Church followed another, ancient tradition, which suggests a very different course.

Europe's is not the only version of the Christian faith, nor is it necessarily the oldest heir of the ancient church. For more than 1,200 years, other quite separate branches of the church established thriving communities across Asia, and in their sheer numbers, these churches were comparable to anything Europe could muster at the time.

The Syrian church traces its ancestry back not through Rome, but directly to the original Jesus movement of ancient Palestine. They moved across India, Central Asia, and China, showing no hesitation to share - and learn from - the other great religions of the East.

Just how far these Christians were prepared to go is suggested by a startling symbol that appeared on memorials and stone carvings in both southern India and coastal China during the early Middle Ages. The image depicts a cross, but it takes a moment to realize that the base of the picture - the root from which the cross is growing - is a lotus flower, the symbol of Buddhist enlightenment.

Christianity has from its earliest days been an intercontinental faith, as firmly established in Asia and Africa as in Europe itself. Looking at the faith in toto. by 800 or so it stretched from Ireland to Korea. Christians interacted in many different ways with other believers, in encounters that reshaped both sides. At their best, these meetings allowed the traditions not just to exchange ideas but to intertwine in productive and enriching ways, in an awe-inspiring chapter of Christian history that the Western churches have all but forgotten.

When Syrian Christians were pressing across Central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists too wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions from India's monasteries and temples. In this diverse world, Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbors and even, sometimes, as collaborators. Some historians believe that Christian missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion then developing in Tibet. Monks spoke to monks.

In presenting their faith, Christians naturally used the cultural forms that would be familiar to Asians. They told their stories in the forms of sutras, verse patterns already made famous by Buddhist missionaries and teachers. A stunning collection of Jesus Sutras was found in caves at Dunhuang, in northwest China. Some Syrian Christian writings draw heavily on Buddhist ideas, as they translate prayers and Christian services in ways that would make sense to Asian readers. In some texts, the Christian phrase "angels and archangels and hosts of heaven" is translated into the language of buddhas and devas.

In 782, the Indian Buddhist missionary Prajna arrived in Chang'an, bearing rich treasures of sutras and other scriptures. Unfortunately, these were written in Indian languages. He consulted the local Christian bishop, Adam, who had already translated parts of the Bible into Chinese. Together, Buddhist and Christian scholars worked amiably together for some years to translate seven copious volumes of Buddhist wisdom. Probably, Adam did this as much from intellectual curiosity as from ecumenical good will, and we can only guess about the conversations that would have ensued: Do you really care more about relieving suffering than atoning for sin? And your monks meditate like ours do?

These efforts bore fruit far beyond China. Other residents of Chang'an at this very time included Japanese monks, who took these very translations back with them to their homeland. In Japan, these works became the founding texts of the great Buddhist schools of the Middle Ages. All the famous movements of later Japanese history, including Zen, can be traced to one of those ancient schools and, ultimately - incredibly - to the work of a Christian bishop.

The letter to Obama from the Russian Orthodox Church just wasted the postage for Obama has no thought for the Christians in this Nation, nor does he have any thought for any belief system other that Islam, people should notice the ring that Obama wears on his finger and has worn for many, many years. It is a ring of faith to Islam.... This should tell us something about Him......

The anniversary of the church burnings in Alabama was all over the news the past few days, but the media just can't bring themselves to put a scourge on the house of Muslim Brotherhood over the church burnings in Egypt. Strange.

I have actually been deployed to Saudi Arabia and I can say from personal experience they are total a-holes. After watching the raw video from 9-11 last week I am amazed that they are still considered our 'allies'. We are forced to do business with them but, honestly, I couldn't care less if the Iranians threaten to nuke Riyadh into a glowing cinder.

We should not forget one thing - The Russian Patriarch is just one of the cards in the deck of Putin. There is no doubt that he wrote his message to Obama after receiving blessings for this from yesterday's atheist Putin.

There is a total lack of "TOLERANCE" for Christians.. This War is more about religious dominance than political dominance.. That to the MUSLIMS is one and the same.. There is no room for any one or any other belief in the Syria or the rest of the Muslim world.

It’s Sunny at the White House! But not in Egypt, if you are a Christian or a Franciscan nun. All over the country, Christian churches are being burned, Christians murdered, and nuns paraded in the streets as “prisoners of war.”

The “war”: this can only mean a war of Islam vs. Christianity, right? What other “war” could they be prisoners of? (Their words, not mine.) The Muslim Brotherhood and their thug adherents are conducting a war of genocide against Christians, trying to erase the Copts – one of the oldest Christian groups in the world – from the land.

Once upon a time in America, the American president would have stood before the world, over and over again, and provided a moral counterweight to this evil. The great figures of the 20th century became great by denouncing evil and condemning genocidal and religious persecution: Reagan, Churchill, Wojtyla.

But Obama is no Wojtyla. He has remained nearly silent on the Muslim Brotherhood’s bloody war on Egypt’s Christians. The martyrs pile up; he plays golf.

The thugs rampaging through Egyptian churches, you see, are Obama’s thugs. He destabilized Egypt by giving the green light to Hosni Mubarak’s fall. After all, Mubarak was an American stooge, a puppet, a toy of imperial America and all that left-wing drool Obama has subscribed to since he was writing articles in college denouncing the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe. Now his thugs rampage through holy places, destroying.

(snip)

That an American president has remained almost silent only adds to the disgrace. Perhaps that first domino Obama sent tumbling keeps him quiet.

Yet there is plenty of time to promote a new puppy at the White House! A high-gloss, taxpayer-funded video features the arrival of Sunny (watch here).

Priorities, I suppose. The low-information crowd will see images of the new puppy in People, but not the nuns paraded down the street. The vapid afternoon television talk shows will run the White House video, but not video of mobs destroying churches.